The 3rd Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab came to an end with the Final Pitch on Sunday, December 6, 2020. The Lab, which was held online during the 23rd Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, involved 12 interesting projects for short films by Greek filmmakers. The projects are aimed at children and young audiences, belong to different genres (live action, animation) and are in varying degrees of maturation.
The Final Pitch was the culmination of a creative educational process that began on November 21, 2020. Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab aims to boost film production for children and young people in Greece, which is at much lower levels than in the rest of Europe. We want to nurture the production of remarkable films, which meet the international criteria of films for children and young people and avoid the traps of oversimplification and ill-conceived commercialism. We wish the films to be promotable to the international circuit of film festivals for children and young people. A number of films that have passed through previous competitions have already been completed, while many of this year’s proposals are quite mature and we hope to see them to reach the screen soon.
Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab is supported by the Greek Film Center and the Hellenic Broadcast Corporation (ERT), who give 3,000 Euros awards to two of the competing projects.
The award of the Greek Film Center (GFC) for 2020 is handed to the short animation project The Adventures of a stray cat by Zacharias Mavroeidis, because, according to GFC’s Jury, “it is a story of adulthood that invites young viewers to believe in themselves. The theme will captivate and move a large audience from many countries creating expectations for a film that will have a dynamic presence outside the Greek borders. The renowned actors have designed – as early as this stage – a production that prepares us for a result worthy of European high-level animation”. The jury consisted of Maria Kallimani, Anna Kasimati and Venia Vergou. The award is accompanied by a cash prize of 3,000 euros.
The award of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) for 2020 is handed to the short live-action project The Beast that walks as a man by Zoe Sigalou and Marina Siotou “for the optimism in the dystopia in which it evolves, for the sensitivity of the presentation, the unripe but also convincing professionalism of the team, the Balkan idiom of history and the universality of the message”, according to the ERT jury, which consisted of Lefteris Fylaktos, Dimitra Akriotou and Michalis Lykoudis. The award is accompanied by a cash prize of 3,000 euros.
In addition, the two films receive sponsorship of technical services at the post-production stage from AUTHORWAVE and STEFILM, while NEANIKO PLANO non-profit, a co-organizer of the Olympia Festival, offers support in the promotion of production (portfolio, translations, international communication) as well as the subtitling of the film.
Since its first edition in 2018, the design and implementation of Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab have been undertaken by Lina Giannopoulou (producer, member of the Olympia Festival organizing committee), Agathi Darlasi (storytelling consultant, director, screenwriter) and Georgina Kakoudaki (director, dramaturg, theatre educator), under the supervision of the Artistic Director of the Festival, director and screenwriter Dimitris Spyrou.
In this year’s edition, the guest lecturers were:
- Tamara Bos, screenwriter, author of children’s books and creative producer of the production company BosBros from the Netherlands, specializing since 1989 in the production of motion pictures and TV series for children and family.
- Xiaojuan Zhou, producer, president of Attraction Distribution based in Canada, executive producer of Attraction Kids. With her team, they have shaped the international career of over 200 films for children and young people from around the world, which have collected over 1,000 awards.
Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young Peoples is very satisfied with the level of proposals that participated in this year’s pitching and welcomes the filmmakers who turn their gaze and attention to children and young audiences. This year’s successful online organization of the festival showed that this audience exists all over the country, and has an opinion on cinema-so long as the filmmakers respond, on their part, to its demands and sensitivities.
The 3rd Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab is organized with the collaboration of Creative Europe MEDIA Office Greece.
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